
:= a?M 



NOTHING LOST; 



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By Rev. LEWIS O. THOMPSON, M.A., 



AUTHOR OF a THE PRESIDENTS AND THEIR ADMINISTRATIONS,' 
''A HISTORICAL CHART," ETC. 



; Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."— John vi : 12. 



NEW YORK: 

BE WITT C. LENT, PUBLISHER, 446 BROOME STREET. 
PEORIA: D. H. TRIPP & CO., 206 MAIN STREET. 

1877. 



:J®^ 



NOTHING LOST; 



THE UNIVERSE A RECORDING MACHINE. 



By Rev. LEWIS O. THOMPSON, M.A.. 



AUTHOR OF 'THE PRESIDENTS AND THEIR ADMINISTRATIONS, 
"A HISTORICAL CHART," ETC. 



Gather dp the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."— John vi : 12. 



, 



i 



NEW YORK: 

DE WITT C. LENT, PUBLISHER, 446 BROOME STREET. 
PEORIA: D. H. TRIPP & CO., 206 MAIN STREET. 

1877. 



rr 






Entered, according to Act ot Congress, in the year 1877, by 

DeWitt C. Lent, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION, 4 

I.— MATTER, 5 

II.— THE UNIVERSE 9 

III.— THE HEAVENS, 12 

IV.— MIND, 17 

V.— THE EARTH AND THE SEA, . 20 

VI.— ATMOSPHERES, ......... 23 

VII.— SOUND, . 26 

VIIL— LIGHT, 32 

IX.— OTHER AGENTS, . . . . .. 36 

X.— GRAVITATION, . . . . . . ' . .... 40 

XI.— EQUIVALENCE, 42 

XII.— THE ETERNITY OF MEMORY, 45 

XIIL— CHANCE, 47 

XIV. — CONCLUSION, 52 



INTRODUCTION. 



He who decides to make reason, observation and experience the sole 
guides to all truth, follows a trinity that is reliable as far as it is able to 
take him, but fails only in not taking him far enough. He who reports 
that there is no God, professes to have made a complete tour of the uni- 
verse; to have looked into its heights and depths; to have been every 
where; to have vision both microscopic and telescopic; claims that his 
reason is infinite and has observed all things ; that his experience has 
extended to ages most remote and includes all facts; and believes him- 
self adequate, from experience so extensive and with reason so enlight- 
ened, to be in possession of all thoughts, facts and secrets. 

If he has left any nook unexplored, there he might have found the 
missing evidence to show that God exists; if there is an age whose testi- 
mony he has overlooked, just at that time he might have received the 
proofs of God's existence; if he does not know every thing, in that which 
he does not know may lie the very testimony and truths that would 
change his convictions and abundantly satisfy him that there is a God. 

There are three great books to teach us that God exists. First, the 
material universe. In all human works there is thought; but thought 
implies a thinker, and a thinker is a 'person. Does not this analogy 
apply to nature? Second, conscience. We have convictions of right 
and wrong. The moral law written upon the tablets of the heart testi- 
fies that a moral lawgiver exists. Third, the Bible. This puts us in 
possession of the facts and truths, which, supplementing the records of 
these two volumes, teach us more fully what we are to believe concern- 
ing God, and how to discharge our duties. 

The present Essay is a series of hints whicri point their index fingers 
to the Unseen, the Eternal, and the Spiritual. 



NOTHING LOST. 



I.— MATTER. 

The only consistent explanation of all things is found in 
the words of Moses, which carry us back as far as the bold- 
est thought or highest imagination can reach : " In the be- 
ginning God created the heavens and the earth." Of course, 
we can not account for the origin of God; but in believing 
that God is an eternal and self-existent Spirit we escape the 
dilemma and find an intelligent cause that is adequate to 
create and produce all forms of being, all kinds of sub- 
stances, and all the changes that take place. So far as at 
present discovered, there are but two kinds of substances : 
matter and mind. Before the birth of modern chemistry, 
matter was believed to consist of four elements — fire, water, 
earth and air. But every body now knows that these are 
compound bodies. The alchemists, who were the harbin- 
gers of chemistry, held the elements to be salt, sulphur, 
and mercury. But even salt is not elementary, but is com- 
posed of chlorine and sodium. With the progress of science, 
the list has been corrected and increased until it has reached 
the number of sixty-three elements. We mean by an ele- 
ment a simple form of matter, or an atom that can not be 
changed into any other form or lose its individuality. We 
do not know how many elements all forms of matter in the 
universe may include; they may be more, they may be less. 
By the atomic theory, there is scarcely a limit to the num- 
ber of combinations into which they may enter to form 
compound bodies. In the English language there are 
twenty-six letters, and by their union to a very small extent 



[6] 

we have already formed over one hundred thousand words. 
Say then that God originally created one hundred ele- 
ments, — if there be that many, more or less, — then, as every 
student of Algebra knows, the formulas of arrangements, 
permutations and combinations admit of an endless variety 
that is more than sufficient to account for all the diversity 
of form, color, quality and characteristic now discernible 
in the material creation. 

With these elements certain laws and forces are found 
connected, such as gravity, heat, light, actinic power, elec- 
tricity, chemical affinity, cohesion, and adhesion. It is 
one of the secrets of science, to tell who or what these 
forces are. We simply know how they are produced, and 
in what circumstances they manifest themselves, but we 
can not tell why they so operate. After centuries of exper- 
iment and speculation, these laws, forces, and the myriad 
changes which vegetable and animal life introduce into the 
composition of matter and the union of elements, remain 
as profound a mystery as ever. A law of Nature is a uni- 
form mode of activity, or a line along which Nature uni- 
formly runs; but the law must not be confounded with the 
force or power that is back of that law. No law has ever 
executed itself; it has never worked, and no one has ever 
detected it so working. A law has never arrested a crim- 
inal; it simply states who shall be arrested, and then 
requires an officer to execute it. The Creator likewise 
must be back of the laws of Nature to administer them, 
to make things conform to them, and, like a coiled spring, 
unite power to these laws, that the machinery may run and 
the hands move. We can not push inquiries very far in 
any direction before we reach what is mysterious and unex- 
plainable; and just there, and all along the line, the heart 
of faith lovingly and with profound gratitude and relief 
cries out, " God, God." Both evolution and development 
require a Creator to energize their processes, and those 
laws or principles of their unfolding which, it is claimed, 
have been discovered, are the methods or plans to which 



God in the formation of the heavens and the earth is 
pleased to conform. 

It is just as reasonable for a person to try and account 
for his advent to this earth without father and mother, as 
to try and account for the existence of matter without a 
creator; and if any where it is reasonable to exercise faith, 
it is just here, in denying the eternity and self-existence of 
matter, and postulating an origin for matter that is com- 
mensurate with our requirements; that shall abundantly 
account for all things, though it leave the Creator Himself 
unaccounted for. And if there be such a Creator, He must 
necessarily be infinite; and the possibility of accounting 
for Him by a finite mind would remove that finite mind 
from the category of its limitations, elevate it to infinity, 
and make it that very God who is infinite, eternal, self- 
conscious and self-existent. In other words, you can not 
pour Niagara into a tea-cup : the attempt breaks the cup. 
Infinitely impossible, therefore, is it for the Infinite Creator 
to fully reveal Himself to the tiny cup of a finite mind. 
No finite mind can comprehend Jehovah. God alone 
comprehends Himself. A finite mind can simply appre- 
hend that God exists; and in so apprehending God, the 
mind of man rests from a flight that is too high for it, and 
happily finds shelter beneath the wings of the Almighty. 
And, as somewhat reflecting this view, we insert the fol- 
lowing lines. It is an attempt to show how Abraham was 
led to reject the idolatry of his father and embrace the 
worship of the true God. Such is the impression, we think, 
that the visible works of God make upon every sincere and 
unprejudiced seeker after Truth and God. 

All night young Abram stood on Chaldee's plain, 
And scanned the dark-blue vault in search of God ; 

" Oh, where canst Thou be found?" he cried in pain, 
"Doth Nature truly teach there is no God? 

Must all our searching ever prove in vain, 
Is man but born a creature of the clod?" 

An answer seemed to come from out the sky ; 

Orion brightly blazing met his eye. 



[8] 

"Be Thou my Lord! To Thee my vows I bring; 

Thy light is clear and fair; first source of all 
Art Thou; Thy praise I will not cease to sing." 

The star shone on and heeded not his call, — 
Orion could not break the crystal ring, 

But sped his way o'er western hills to fall, 
And glided down beyond Great Hermon's head. 
"I like not those that set," young Abram said. 

To him the moon uprising in the east 
Its silver sheen soon made the night to glow 

As it had been the day ; and now at least 
The homage of his soul through life shall flow 

To this divinity. "On Thee I feast 
The hunger of my heart," he said. And slow 

The moon her pathway threaded the heavenly route 

And left the seeker after God in doubt. 

And now the quest to end the sun arose 
With life and light and healing in his gleams; 

More fair and clear than moon or star, it shows 
A glory none can bear, as forth it streams. 

" My Lord is here! From hence all goodness flows 
To earth below; and who can quench his beams? 

Oh, guide my steps, or I shall err and die, 

Vainly in search of Thee," this was his cry. 

But, like the rest, the orb of day went down, 
And gloomy clouds obscured the firmament. 

" Is there no God, or hides He in a frown 
His face from Terah's son? Nay: these were sent 

As dazzling rays that sparkled from His crown 
To point me to the Fount of Light unspent. 

I am from low idolatry set free; 

Great God, I turn from all Thy works to Thee ! " 

Four thousand years have come and gone since then; 

A throng of seekers after God untold 
Have gazed upon Orion, moon and sun, 

And vexed all Nature with their questions bold: — 
"O God, if Thou dost live, send down some token! " 

But Nature, like a sphinx, in silence cold 
Has answered not; the riddle still is new. — 
Faith sees, hope hears, love finds — the gift of few. 



[9] 



II.— THE UNIVERSE. 

When we gaze into the starry deep on a cloudless night, 
we are oppressed with the feeling of its immensity and 
perplexed with a sense of its mystery. Millions of our 
fellow beings have gazed upon this profound beauty and 
been as perplexed and oppressed as we. The universe 
refuses to give up its secret. " Thou canst not by search- 
ing find out God unto perfection." We require, therefore, 
a divine revelation to guide us in the proper interpretation 
of Nature, and take us just where Nature leaves us. When 
we read the two records together, they give us a true 
philosophy and combine in beautiful harmony. 

Matter has united into different aggregations which are 
scattered through space as planets, stars, comets, and 
meteors. Dr. Burr, in the Ecce Coelum, has grouped these 
various forms into a variety of systems. The classification 
can only be a suggestion of what may possibly be true; for 
the universe is so vast that it is difficult to say that there 
are no more than these systems. But as far as it goes, and 
in the line of analogy, the arrangement is excellent, and 
gives a better idea of the construction of the universe than 
we can get without such classification. 

First, we find satellite systems, of which the moon and 
the earth are a ready illustration. These have mutual re- 
lations to each other, and so constitute an order by them- 
selves. 

Next are the planetary systems, such as the Sun with its 
eight larger planets, and a greater number of asteroids and 
comets. Some of these planets, as Earth, Saturn, and Jupi- 
ter, have satellites of their own, and their revolutions around 
the sun are somewhat modified by these their more contig- 
uous bodies. 

Third in a progressive order must be noticed the sun 
systems. Many of the stars that to the naked eye appear 
as one are found, when pierced by a telescope, to be double, 
treble, or even sextuple. Sirius, for instance, — the star 
that twinkles with such glory on the snow-bound earth, — 
2 



[10] 

lias lately been discovered to be double. The inference is 
a fair one, that these stars and suns revolve about each 
other, and they have in all probability their court of plan- 
ets and retinue of satellites. It is claimed that some of 
these systems have been traced in complete revolution. 
How vast must be their orbits, and how various their cir- 
cling dance as they roll and swing and nod to each other 
in their various revolutions. 

Next may be named the group systems. As an example, 
the telescope has resolved the bright-blue star Vega into 
four stars, and these are so situated in space that each pair 
revolves about the other before they revolve about their 
common centre of gravity. Orion contains a star that is 
sextuple. These are so ranged that pairs revolve about 
themselves whilst trooping about the common point of all. 
Now let us suppose each star has its planets, each planet 
its satellites, and what Hogarth can trace their bending 
lines of beauty ? It is enough to make the head giddy. 

There are still other combinations that may be called 
cluster systems. The face of the sky is dotted with little 
spots that the minutest scrutiny reveals to be composed of 
from ten to twenty thousand stars. They are so remote 
from us that the light coming from them is composed of 
many thousand strands woven into one thread. When Sir 
William Herschel first penetrated the constellation of Her- 
cules with his great reflector and saw myriad suns leap into 
view, the sight nearly drove him frantic with delight. 
These are clusters sailing like squadrons by themselves on 
the outskirts of creation, that dazzle the imagination, and 
confound description. It may be that in them are found 
all the single and various systems that have previously 
been considered. 

Sixth, we advance to an order that may be called nebular 
systems, of which the milky way maybe taken as a familiar 
illustration. These populate space and fill it with a sort of 
fire-mist, in which each atom is a burning star, but so im- 
mensely remote that all individuality seems ready to vanish 



[11] 

into air. Brilliant beyond conception in importance and 
glory are these innumerable stars, planets and satellites. 
]S~o thought can follow them through their giddy labyrinths, 
as star swings to star, as planet nods to planet, as satellite 
bows to planet, and each sways and bends the movements 
of the other, as in the infinitude of years these nebulae re- 
volve about their point of gravity. 

We have now to suppose, still farther, that these nebulae, 
by their contiguity and in the line of analogy, have a com- 
mon centre about which they sail in grand orbits that defy 
the power of arithmetic to express. This has been named 
the ulterior system. For instance, the Magellanic clouds 
are composed of numerous nebulae, thirty-seven nebulae in 
one, and three hundred in the other. Who shall describe 
their cycles and the convolutions of those circling lines 
that make up their various orbits ? 

And now, in the eighth and last place, we come to the 
Cosmos, or the complete system, which embraces under 
one code of laws all the misty spots and fiery specks, the 
stars, the planets, the asteroids, the comets, and all other 
forms of matter, aye, every single atom. This grand system 
has its point of centre to which all preceding orbits must 
bend and conform, tracing on infinite space their golden 
girdles. Who will tell us the number of the stars, and 
weigh the planets, and write tneir histories, and describe 
the races, the dynasties, the pursuits, the arts, the sciences, 
the civilization and the religion of intelligent and moral 
creatures that may be scattered through the universe vastly 
more numberless than the stars themselves ? Has such a 
record as this been kept from the beginning, and are its 
chapters still being filled out ? We may at least suppose 
that all this magnificence and wealth of light and glory are 
for the delight of other beings than those who merely 
dwell upon one of the smallest of all worlds. At all events, 
they express as no words can the glory of the Creator; for 
these are but a part of His ways. God is infinitely more 
glorious, beautiful, powerful, wise, and majestic than all 



[12 1 

material things combined can image forth. They are hut 
the folds of His garments. Now, what if the universe is 
engaged in writing its own history ? 

III.— THE HEAVENS. 

Before we proceed farther, let us get some idea of the 
extent of the universe. Astronomers have labored to give 
us their conception of how the universe is grouped, or how 
it would look if we could, so to speak, get a bird's-eye 
view of it from the outside. Ancient astronomy taught 
that the universe was inclosed by a spherical shell, from 
whose sides the heat and light were radiated back to all 
parts within, so that there was no waste or loss of these 
precious essences. Kepler held this view, and he even 
went so far as to estimate — and the calculations were 
deemed most reliable — the thickness of this crystal vault, 
and he found it to be just 70 miles thick. It is worthy of 
remark, that astronomers could predict eclipses just as 
accurately under the Ptolemaic system as since its displace- 
ment; and also, that modern astronomy has not affected 
the three famous laws of Kepler. But the Copernican 
system, by the help of Galileo's telescope, has pierced this 
crystal shell and swept away the cycles and epicycles of 
the old astronomy from the celestial sphere. 

Milton's conception of the universe is connected with 
the Ptolemaic philosophy. He understood, but rejected, 
the Copernican system. It forms the system upon which 
the machinery of his greatest poetical work, " The Para- 
dise Lost," depends. His universe is an infinite sphere 
divided into two hemispheres; the empyrean, or heaven, is 
located above, and chaos below the celestial equator. They 
are separated from each other by crystal walls. The 
heaven above this floor is the special home of God and His 
ministering spirits. He located hell near the south pole 
in chaos, and the world is swung as a small circle in chaos 
between heaven and hell. The word world, including our 
solar system and all the stars, is hung by a golden chain 



[13] 

to the crystal floor of heaven, through which there is a 
gate to open a passage between heaven and the world. 
The world is surrounded on all sides by an opaque shell, 
which has an opening in it at the top to correspond with 
the gate of heaven. The earth is the centre of this world, 
and is motionless. Ten concentric circles enfold the earth, 
and all the motions visible among these heavenly bodies is 
accounted for by the revolving motion of these ten cir- 
cles : 1st, that of the moon proceeding from the earth; 2d, 
Yenus; 3d, Mercury; 4th, the Sun; 5th, Mars; 6th, Jupi- 
ter; 7th, Saturn; 8th, the fixed stars; 9th, the crystalline 
sphere; and 10th, the primum mobile. 

If we could take the standpoint of Wright's or Sir Wm. , 
Herschel's theory, we should have some such view as that 
sketched in the preceding chapter — a single starry system 
composed of many different systems revolving in harmony 
about a common centre, whilst at the same time conform- 
ing to the bending motions of their own system and that 
of all the other systems. We may conceive the earth in 
this system to have a variety of motions, such as that 
about its own axis, around the sun, slightly swayed by the 
moon, and influenced by the planets, its onward motion in 
space with the sun as he revolves about his centre of grav- 
ity, this onward motion still modified by the movement of 
the sun's system with some other system, and groups with 
groups, until finally its completed motion is blended into 
a waving line of beauty around the cosmical point of 
gravity. 

Another view is that of Lambert, which has been erro- 
neously ascribed to Sir Wm. Herschel. This regards the 
systems as scattered in groups to form, not as in the view 
above, a sphere, but a monster capital letter Y- Now, 
which may be the correct view can only be ascertained by 
mapping out all parts of the heavens, locating the stars 
and groups relatively, and taking, as it were, a photograph 
of this grand aggregation of suns and worlds. 

It is evident when we use the word universe as applying 



[14]' 

to the sum-total of matter, that it is finite. If matter were 
infinite, these vast interstellar spaces would be filled up, 
and it would extend infinitely in every direction without 
end and without vacuum. Indeed, that the planets and 
stars are at almost such infinite distances from each other, 
shows plainly that, not only is matter not infinite, but 
occupies also a very small room within this boundless space. 
But the universe as relates to space may be infinite; that 
is to say, we can not conceive of space as stopping in any 
direction. Let thought fly as far as it will, and you will 
still conceive that space extends beyond that farthest bound, 
that the same profound deep must still spread out ahead 
as behind, above as below, a universe without circumfer- 
ence and without centre. It is certain that matter in its 
different forms of satellite, planet and sun is finite; it may 
be that space, or indefinite extension in height, breadth 
and length, is infinite. 

And just as we are about to be perplexed with a thought 
of this kind, as the brow is about to be wrinkled, and the 
mind burdened and oppressed with this feeling of immen- 
sity, the Bible comes to our relief. Science teaches that 
there are two heavens; the Bible, that there are three. 

The first heaven is that which immediately surrounds 
the earth : in other words, the atmosphere. This is a very 
thin shell around the earth. When the sun shines upon 
it, the air is so flooded with light that the naked eye can 
not see objects outside of it. 

The second heaven is the planetary and stellar heaven, 
in which all the stars revolve about their common centre. 
Astronomers have not been able to give us its dimensions. 
In the day we see merely the first heaven; in the night 
this appears veiled, and now we see the second heaven, 
in which the moon, the planets, and fire-mist, shine, burn, 
blaze, twinkle and blink upon us with their varied hues. 
The view presented to the naked eye is most certainly 
finite; for we cannot see farther than to take in about 
3000 stars, and the telescope does not and can not pierce to 



[15] 

infinity. Its view is limited, though a telescope of 18 
inches in aperture, like Herschel's, will present some 
20,000,000 stars. And science can never soar above or be- 
yond this finite second heaven; it matters not how much 
the power of the telescope is' increased, its view will still 
be finite. A finite quantity can never be multiplied by 
infinity and changed into infinity. Science, therefore, 
must ever dwell in, and deal with, the finite. And just 
where science droops upon its wing and can soar no far- 
ther, revelation meets it to supplement its teaching. 

The Bible tells us about three heavens. It does not con- 
tradict the positive teachings of science. It speaks of the 
heaven in which the sun shines, the first heaven of science, 
the heaven of the day-time. "Let there be an expanse in 
the midst of the waters"; and this expanse " God called 
heaven." 

The Bible speaks about another heaven, the second 
heaven of science, the heaven of the night-time, and as 
including the first calls it "the heavens." In these the 
stars are set. It should be observed that the Bible is not 
designed to be a treatise on astronomy, chemistry and 
philosophy; it leaves that for man's unaided powers to 
investigate; but when these things are adverted to, they 
are used as they would be in a treatise of Natural Theology, 
to teach the power and the wisdom of God. " The heavens 
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his 
handiwork." 

The Bible tells us of just one heaven more, the spiritual 
heaven, called the "third heaven," and also, as including 
the other two, "the heaven of heavens." This is "my 
Father's house," in which " are many mansions." Of this 
science can say nothing, its little telescope can not pierce 
it; it is the heaven which the martyr Stephen saw when 
he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened and the son of 
man standing on the right hand of God." This heaven 
has been seen by many a one just at death's door. Into 
this heaven Christ went when " a cloud received him out of 



[16] 

their sight." Day brings out the sun, night brings out the 
stars, and death brings out Paradise. Day and night can 
not hide the spiritual heaven when the eyes of the soul are 
opened. There is nothing absurd in this, but a beautiful 
harmony. Organs of vision must have an adaptation to 
the medium in which they are designed to be used. A fish 
in the ocean has eyes adapted to that dense medium, and 
can not see the objects that are above and outside. The 
third heaven, then, is the unseen universe which the bodily 
eye can not see till its scales fall, and the eye of faith, the 
eye of the spirit, is opened. The treatment of these three 
heavens, and the objects for which they are treated, in the 
Bible is grand, glorious and masterly. In itself it is clear 
and consistent. The errors of translators do not adhere to 
the text, neither do the views of commentators upon it, 
for these have varied from age to age. And we may say 
that the Bible is not chargeable with these erroneous inter- 
pretations, but science. Students of the Bible have always 
taken the regnant views in astronomy and science, and 
applied them to the interpretation of the Bible. Indeed, 
there is nothing else by which they could interpret; and 
we come back then and say that all these errors are charge- 
able upon that science that has progressed age by age and 
required all this shifting. The Bible is the book of the 
ages, and stands the test only because its statements on 
these great themes are intrinsically true. 

God is infinite, and every where present. This relieves 
us from all that vagueness which thoughts about space 
give us; and we have only to say that, somehow, and in 
some way, though utterly incomprehensible to a finite 
mind, God fills up infinity with His spiritual presence, and 
enfolds in His bosom heaven, the heavens, and the heaven 
of heavens, — all things. All space is pervaded and sur- 
rounded by His glorious presence, vivified by His power, 
governed by His wisdom, and upheld by His love. The 
mind " that acheth with the feeling of this immensity " can 
safely nestle beneath His outspread wings, and be at rest 
and peace. 



[17] 

IV.— MIND. 

But there is another class of substances that is imma- 
terial, which is called life, mind, soul, or spirit. Life 
possesses none of the characteristics of matter, and there- 
fore can not be the product of matter. The cup can not 
generate the wine it holds. It is a special creation. It 
does not transmigrate through different forms, appearing 
first as vegetable life, then as animal life, and then as 
rational life; but these three kingdoms are entirely distinct, 
separate and individual in their functions and manifesta- 
tions. 

The realm of vegetable life rests upon the mineral king- 
dom as its basis. This differs from the former in that we 
here find operative an organic force called vegetable life. 
What that law or force is by which an acorn is caused to 
sprout and grow into an oak no man can tell; or what it is 
that makes one seed differ from another, so that one shall 
be an oak, and another a cedar, an apple or a rose, a cab- 
bage or a pumpkin, no one knows, and what is more, no 
one can produce the force nor create the seed. Science can 
not do it, nor all the academies in the world. Life is a 
power supernatural to the mineral. Without the manifes- 
tation of vegetable life the rocks would remain barren and 
the earth would turn its sterile and scorched face to the 
sun continually. When God created vegetable life, he 
introduced a force among the elements that combines them 
into herb, flower, shrub, and tree, and in clothing the earth 
with verdure, fruit and cereal, He spread over it a mantle 
"of beauty" that makes it "a joy forever." 

We find another department, different from vegetable 
and mineral, and that is the animal kingdom. It is supe- 
rior to both, in that it introduces voluntary motion and a 
self-determining power. By its instrumentality results are 
produced which neither plant nor stone, nor both together, 
can accomplish, and hence this force is supernatural to both. 
The vegetable stands as a bridge between animal life and 
material forms, and so is a food-producer. What would 
3 



[18] 

an animal amount to, let us suppose man, if he were obliged 
to stand six months of the year, like a plant, with his feet 
changed into vegetable roots, to draw his supplies of food 
direct from the soil ? 

Upon these, as the rounds of a ladder, we enter the do- 
main of rational life in man — of free will and accounta- 
bility. Man, to be sure, is an animal, and in the substance 
of his body a part of the material world, and subject to 
physical law and natural forces; but he is vastly more than 
an element, or vegetable, or animal, — a stone, a cabbage, 
or an ape, — he is soul, spirit, a moral being. The lower 
orders are his servants; they supply proper material for 
food. He could not live on the elements, nor on the vege- 
table, nor on the animal merely. These all unite in proper 
proportions as supply and food-producers, that man may be 
left unincumbered with roots and leaves and branches 
and capacious stomach, to walk the earth, and have full 
sweep for those splendid and godlike gifts of will, sensi- 
bility, and intellect. Without these man would never be 
the crown of creation — its crown and glory. Personality, 
or soul or spirit, is a distinct creation, and is as mysterious 
as animal or vegetable life, or elemental subsistence. Man 
is a supernatural agent with regard to all the realms below 
him. All the elegancies, refinements and luxuries of civili- 
zation — such as art, poetry, eloquence, philosophy, history, 
science, industry and commerce, with all those varied 
agencies that build cities, form governments, produce pleas- 
ure, gratify taste, inform the mind, stir the feelings, influ- 
ence the will, and make life secure and comfortable — all 
these are not original products of nature, or the natural 
world, but supernatural to the orders below, that would 
never have been achieved without the immortal mind work- 
ing in, through and above these realms. 

In man, then, we find a personality working through 
organs, senses, faculties. Personality is the very highest 
form of organized intelligence of which we have any 
knowledge. In looking upward to God through the eye 
of faith, we perceive that there are other ascending, related 



[19] 

and subordinate realms. The Bible gives us the hint of a 
limited series, in speaking of angel, and archangel, cheru- 
bim and seraphim. "For by him were all things created 
that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisi- 
ble, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principali- 
ties, or powers, all things were created by him, and for him; 
and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." 
When we look at the material universe, the mind is awed 
by its vastness and magnificence ; when we contemplate the 
invisible world as revealed in the Word of God, we catch a 
glimpse of spiritual hierarchies that rise above us to the 
very precincts of the eternal throne — a host of angels, in- 
numerable spirits, and potent personalities that encamp 
about Jehovah, gifted with such richness of knowledge, 
such fullness of capacity, such volume of power, as to 
dwarf the importance of man and make him but a drop in 
the ocean of living intelligences. How little we know of 
the wonderful works of the Perfect in Knowledge ! We 
can barely know about that for which we have special 
sense and faculty. If we had a hundred senses, in stead of 
live, a thousand mental faculties and spiritual organs, in 
stead of a score or two, through which to test matter, 
through which to look upward, through which to see as 
we are seen, our acquaintance with the universe, both ma- 
terial and immaterial, seen and unseen, would be vastly 
more extensive than it now is or can be. And because the 
spiritual organs of man are entirely closed in a fallen state, 
he is dead blind to the visions of heaven, and must ever 
depend upon the Word of God for knowledge about spirit- 
ual realms, and must ever wait the regenerative command 
of God, "Lazarus, come forth," by which a dead soul 
shall become a quickened spirit. The curtains now con- 
fine the spiritual world; and, as compared with things that 
are seen, the Word of God draws them back just a little, 
that we may now and then catch a glimpse. But in that 
view we look upon a kingdom of God so. vast as to em- 
brace all things, seen and unseen, and a central throne of 
grandeur and sublimity upon which sits the Supreme Gov- 



[20] 

ernor of the universe, of which He is the centre and cir- 
cumference, about whom all things revolve, and in whom 
all things move, live and have their being. There may be 
a hundred subordinate kingdoms rising rank above rank 
from the material creation up to God; but separated from 
all by an impassable gulf — that between finiteness and in- 
finity — is enthroned the infinite and adorable God. God 
reveals Himself as a person; for, in speaking to us, He uses 
pronouns; but He probably includes in His being some- 
thing higher than personality. What that may be is in- 
comprehensible; but it is just this, a divine trinity in unity. 
How three persons can subsist in unity transcends experi- 
ence and human philosophy. 

But it matters not how many ascending realms there 
may be up to the innermost circle about God, they each 
have a natural subordination to the other. Each kingdom 
is a separate creation, and set in its appropriate place as 
jewels in the Creator's diadem. The world is not an iso- 
lated speck upon the face of creation. In all its bearings 
and relations it is connected with the universe, and has its 
true sphere and function in that single plan which finally 
includes and embraces all. The earth is no outlying post 
that has been cut off from the grand encampment. " The 
Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his 
kingdom ruleth over all." 

V.— THE EARTH AND THE SEA. 

Returning now from this rapid view of the universe, its 
possible structure, and the different substances in it, to the 
planet we inhabit, let us glance at the record the earth and 
the sea have prepared and treasured. " The crust of our 
earth," says Agassiz, " is a great cemetery, where the rocks 
are tombstones on which the buried dead have written their 
own epitaphs." Every living thing by necessity, as it 
yields up the generous flame of life, when the silver cord 
is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is 
broken at the fountain, or the wheel is broken at the cis- 
tern, sinks into the tender bosom of mother earth for sepul- 



[21*] 

ture, and becomes an enduring part of the earth's surface, 
or has a resurrection in other forms of life. Plants and 
animals of every description have printed their history on 
and in the living rock, which man in after ages has ex- 
humed and interpreted. "And this our life," says the 
great English dramatist, " exempt from public haunt, finds 
tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in 
stones, and good in every thing." "Nature will be re- 
ported," says Emerson. "All things are engaged in writ- 
ing their history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended 
by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on 
the mountain; the river its channel in the soil; the animal 
its bones in the stratum; the fern and leaf their modest 
epitaph in the coal. The falling drop makes its sculpture 
in the sand or stone. Not a foot steps into the snow or 
along the ground, but prints, in character more or less last- 
ing, a map of its march. Every act of man inscribes itself 
in the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and 
face. The air is full of sounds; the sky of tokens; the 
ground is all memoranda and signatures, and every object 
covered over with hints which speak to the intelligent." 

In certain caves bones of animals have been found under 
calcareous deposits. Water dripping through the roof 
charged with lime and carbonic gas has given them a solid 
stone covering. Some of these thus found are gnawed and 
others split lengthwise. With these are found traces of 
the hyena, ashes, charred wood, and stone implements. 
Man is the only animal that lights a fire; hence, the geolo- 
gist finds here a history of earlier times, when men of the 
so-called stone age dwelt in caves and but partially pro- 
tected themselves from the ravages of wild beasts. The 
thicker these deposits, the earlier the epoch to which this 
race belonged. 

A remarkable case has come to light where the entire 
body, flesh and bones, of a now extinct animal has been 
found preserved for ages in ice. "In 1802, on the bank of 
Lena, — a river which flows into the Frozen Sea, and tra- 
verses the country of the Yakoots in those parts of Asia 



[22] 

that lie about the North Pole, — there has been found a 
perfectly preserved carcass of the gigantic pachyderm. 
The frozen earth, and the ice that covered the banks of the 
river where it was buried, had preserved it from putrefac- 
tion so thoroughly, that the flesh of the animal, which died 
many centuries ago, served to regale the fishermen along 
the banks." — L. Figuier. 

The unmutilated bodies of. flies have some times been 
found encased in amber. A piece of chalk is composed of 
myriad bodies of little beings that once sported their brief 
existence upon this globe. 

Geologists tell us if we drain a circular meadow and dig 
below its surface, we shall And evidence to show that it 
was once the bottom of a lake. There is first the sod, next 
a layer of peat, then one of marl, and finally one of clayey 
sediment. "In the peat we find antlers of deer.and bones 
of oxen; in the marl, fresh-water shells; and in the sedi- 
ment, a log hollowed out into a rude canoe. Here we have 
the whole history of the lake, and in reading it we can 
trace the successive stages as clearly as if we had lived by 
its shores from the time it was a sheet of shallow water to 
the hour of its final obliteration. Such ancient lake-bot- 
toms are seen in the Lowlands of Scotland. The geologist 
finds below the peat-bog the bones of horse, pig, deer, dog 
and man; deeper still, the Roman eagle or sword; next, 
the bones of the wild ox, bear, wolf, beaver; then the 
wooden canoe; below the marl, bones and antlers of the 
gigantic Irish elk, and tusks of the great mammoth; and 
at the bottom the solid rock, strewn with ice-borne blocks 
— the original bed of the lake when its waters were first 
gathered together." — (Geology.) And now, to show how 
significant is this record, how valuable these traces, how 
suggestive these hints, we are told that Cuvier, or Owen, 
or any first-class geologist, could or can reconstruct the 
entire animal from a single bone. Agassiz drew the pic- 
ture of a fish with only a scale as his pattern. The Crystal 
Palace at Sydenham, England, contains the model of a 
megalosaur constructed by B. Waterhouse Hawkins from 



[23] 

a few bones that had been discovered. This eminent 
anatomist decided that this extinct animal, in order to 
have its head effective, must have a huge bunch of muscles 
on its neck something like the withers of a horse. An 
entire skeleton found since the model was constructed has 
proved the correctness of its plan and his conclusions. 

It therefore only needs an enlarged culture and intelli- 
gence to read and understand the record which the sea 
and the earth together have been keeping of the past 
history of the globe. And if the changes through which 
the earth has gone can be thus interpreted, if the remains 
of all kinds of former life have been so safely treasured, 
and if even from a scale, or bone, or feather, the entire liv- 
ing animal, whose once it was, can be reconstructed from 
even so slight a hint, we need not be surprised if increased 
mental vigor should be able to find in these hieroglyphics 
the condensed history .of intelligent and moral actions. 
" If the Almighty," says Sir Charles Babbage, " stamped 
on the brow of the earliest murderer the indelible and 
visible mark of his guilt, he has also established laws by 
which every succeeding criminal is not less irrevocably 
chained to the testimony of his crime; for every atom of 
his mortal frame, through whatever changes its severed 
particles may migrate, will still retain, adhering to it 
through every combination, some movement derived from 
that very muscular effort by which the crime itself was 
perpetrated." " Be sure your sin will find you out," says 
Holy Writ. How can it be otherwise, when we look at the 
wonderful testimonies to Divine Truth which Geology, 
Chemistry, and Philosophy in its different departments of 
natural, mental and moral, are finding all around us in air 
and earth and sea ? 

VI.— ATMOSPHERES. 

The earth is surrounded by a spherical shell called the 
air, supposed to be, by various estimations, from 50 to 500 
miles thick. Now, the question comes up, Is there outside 
of this any other atmosphere ? Is planetary and stellar 



[24] 

space destitute of all other media than those which more 
immediately surround the heavenly bodies ? It has been 
a very ancient opinion that Nature abhors a vacuum. It 
is now generally believed that a tenuous, subtile and elastic 
medium, called ether, fills all space and pervades all bodies. 

Our atmosphere serves the globe in a variety of capaci- 
ties, all related to the present order of things. It rests 
upon bodies with a uniform pressure of 15 pounds to the 
square inch. Bodily life could not get along without this 
uniform pressure. The air is a sort of hot-house to retain 
the heat and light of the sun. Perpetual snow rests upon 
the mountain's peak because there the heat is so rapidly 
scattered and dissipated. Aeronauts do not ascend very 
high — indeed, the highest ascension ever made was seven 
miles high — before reaching the regions of insufferable 
cold. The air, by its mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and car- 
bonic acid, is an indispensable element to all kinds of vege- 
table and animal life as at present organized. It supports 
respiration. 

If the air should be removed, the eye and ear would 
require new adjustments. If man could get along without 
it in other respects, yet this itself would prove so serious a 
defect as to rob life of all its charms. ~No blue sky would 
ever spread out its beauties with many tinted shades and 
colors that linger in the gloaming or herald in the dawn of 
day. Mght would never blaze and glitter like a crystal 
vault studded with stars and gems; and day would never 
flood us with its cheering light. The sun would appear 
like a ball of fire in a dark night; and the stars would 
never twinkle upon us with glad delight, but look like 
little spots of fire in a vault of inky darkness. Sounds, too, 
would cease to ravish the ear with their harmony. If a 
clock be placed under a pneumatic tube and the air ex- 
hausted, its ticks and strokes become silent; its motions 
still continue, but no sound escapes. 

Besides all this, the air prevents the water of the earth 
from escaping. That side of the moon which is turned 
toward us is without air, and as a result it is a desert void, 



[25] 

without water, without vegetation, and without life. If a 
vessel of water be placed under the pneumatic tube, and 
the air gradually pumped out, the water begins to boil and 
bubble, and finally it disappears. To remove the atmos- 
phere, then, would be to dry up the oceans and the lakes, 
every river and every fountain, all springs and all reser- 
voirs, and change the earth into a perpetual desert, deso- 
late caverns and barren wastes. No spear of grass, no 
single flower, could ever grow or bloom. 

But, by the theory now held, light and heat require a 
medium for their vibrations outside of the earth's air. In 
a recent Treatise on the Nature of Light, it is held that 
" light must consist in undulatory movement of an attenu- 
ted elastic substance. The phenomena of polarization 
demonstrated, in point of fact, that the vibrations of light 
take place at right angles to the direction of the rays." 
The ether is an infinite ocean through which rays of light 
rise and fall, roll and vibrate. A crystal sea more ethereal 
than air envelops star, sun, and planet, binds them all 
together in the same system, and possibly pervades all the 
different forms of matter in the universe. Light does not 
leap across abysmal gulfs of nonentity, like waves hurled 
from the sea upon projecting cliffs, but vibrates and flashes 
through such media as the ether, the air, and other atmos- 
pheres, if such there be, that light may come and go with 
its tidings from star to star and world to world, and pro- 
duce in each such lingering and luminous vibrations as 
shall be needed and required in each by their constitutional 
adaptations and mutual relations in subordinated realms. 

But if space be an absolute vacuum, it has the property 
of permitting light and heat to leap across it and continue 
their vibrations and impressions in such media as may be 
found immediately surrounding the various orbs in the 
universe. Our atmosphere has the capacity of catching 
these rays of light and heat and actinic energy, holding 
them, spreading them out, and reserving them in many 
ways for the various uses of earth and man. 
4 



[26] 



VIL— SOUND. 

Sound is produced by the vibration of bodies in a medi- 
um such as air. These originate waves of sound, which 
produce on the organ of hearing certain sensations. These 
vibrations are distinct from their effects upon the human 
mind. Sound, in the language of philosophy, is both ob- 
jective and subjective. The sound waves exist whether 
organs of hearing are excited by them or not. These waves 
diminish in intensity as they roll away from the exciting 
cause as a centre; at a certain distance they pass beyond 
the recognition of the human ear as now constructed and 
become inaudible; but we can not suppose that the effect 
of these vibrations, or the impact upon surrounding media, 
is ever lost, any more than gravitation as a force is 
destroyed by distance. Every word, whispered or spoken, 
prints itself upon the air and neighboring media, which 
treasure up the indelible record. Aeronauts, in their ascen- 
sions, hear with great distinctness the barking of dogs, the 
song of birds, and the humdrum of a city sounding like 
the grinding of a mill. It would only require a keener 
sense of hearing and a power of mind to turn from all 
these sounds to a particular vibration, that is to say, a 
modification of the organ itself and the relation of the 
mind to a special vibration, to enable the mind to distin- 
guish these sounds and tell from what source they issued. 
We may go even farther, and say that these vibrations are 
transferred from the air to the ether, or other medium, 
where they are imprinted into the very constitution of the 
universe. 

We may conclude, then, that every word originated by 
man is found some where in the universe in the peculiar 
vibration which received and perpetuated it. The pebble 
dropped into the ocean is not lost; the word committed to 
the air is not destroyed. The air is another Ear of Dio- 
nysius that receives and transmits every, even the faintest, 
sound. " The pulsations of the air," says Sir Charles Bab- 
bage, " once set in motion by the human voice, cease not to 



[27] 

exist with the sounds to which they gave rise." " The air 
itself is one vast library on whose pages are for ever written 
all that man has ever said, or even whispered. There, in 
their mutable but enduring characters, mixed with the 
earliest as well as the latest sighs of mortality, stand for 
ever recorded, vows unredeemed, promises unfulfilled, per- 
petuating in the united movements of each particle the 
testimony of man's changeful will." " If we imagine the 
soul in an after stage of our existence, connected with a 
bodily organ of hearing so sensitive as to vibrate with mo- 
tions of the air, even if of infinitessimal force, and if it be 
still within the precincts of its ancient abode, all the accu- 
mulated words pronounced from the creation of mankind 
will fall at once on that ear. Imagine, in addition, a power 
of directing the attention of that organ entirely to any 
class of those vibrations; then will the apparent confusion 
vanish at once; and the punished offender may hear still 
vibrating on his ear the very words uttered, perhaps thou- 
sands of centuries before, which at once ceased and regis- 
tered his own condemnation." William Cobbett has said, 
"A man, as he writes on a sheet of paper a sentence, ought 
to bear in mind that he is writing something which may, 
for good or evil, live for ever." And with accumulating 
force Dr. South says, " He who has published an ill book 
must know that his guilt and his life determine not to- 
gether; no, such an one, as the Apostle says, 'Being dead, 
yet speaketh'; he sins in his very grave, corrupts others 
while he is rotting himself, and has a growing account in 
the other world after he has paid nature's last debt in this; 
and, in a word, quits this life like a man carried off by the 
plague, who, though he dies himself, does execution upon 
others by a surviving infliction." But spoken words like- 
wise leave behind them a solemn power for good or ill. 
The same writer says, in a sermon : " There is a certain be- 
witchery or fascination in words which makes them oper- 
ate with a force beyond which we can naturally give an 
account of. For would not a man think ill deeds and 
shrewd truths should reach further and stick deeper than 



[28] 

ill words ? And yet, not so. Men much more easily par- 
don ill things done than ill things said against them, such 
a peculiar rancour and venom do words leave behind them 
in men's minds, and so much more poisonously and ven- 
omously does the serpent bite with his tongue than his 
teeth." 

Samuel Lover has given us a happy conceit in his " Han- 
dy Andy," of the effect extreme cold has upon words. 
"You talk here of a sharp wind; but the wind is so sharp 
there that it cut off our beard and whiskers. Boreas is a 
great barber, sir, with his north pole for a sign. Then as 
for frost ! I could tell you such incredible things of its in- 
tensity; our butter, for instance, was as hard as a rock; we 
were obliged to knock it off with a chisel and hammer, like 
a mason at a piece of granite, and it was necessary to be 
careful of your eyes at breakfast, the splinters used to fly 
about so; indeed, one of the party did lose the use of his 
eye from a butter-splinter. But the oddest thing of all was 
to watch two men talking to each other; you could observe 
the words as they came out of their mouths, suddenly frozen 
and dropping down in little pellets of ice at their feet, so 
that, after a long conversation, you might see a man stand- 
ing up to his knees in his own eloquence." We may 
imagine how these Arctic voyagers in returning to warmer 
latitudes must have been startled as by the noise of many 
thunders when these frozen words exploded in volleys 
about their heads and terrified their ears with the oaths 
and conversations of many months. 

It does not appear that Babbage was the first to give 
expression to the idea that spoken words are permanently 
impressed upon the air. Chaucer, in his " House of Fame," 
has given a remarkable anticipation of this its fuller expo- 
sition in the "Ninth Bridgewater Treatise." After illus- 
trating the subject by the concentric and widening circles 
which a stone dropped into water originates, he concludes : 

" Right so of air, my live brother, 
Ever each air another stirreth 
More and more, and speech upbeareth 
Till it be at the House of Fame." 



[29] 

Our senses and faculties, as now constituted, have a happy 
relation to the physical universe. If they were more acute, 
it might add to our pain rather than enjoyment. If "the 
wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all," 
as Prof. Huxley says, " due only to the dullness of our hear- 
ing," it is well for us that our hearing is dull; for, "could 
our ears catch the murmurs of these tiny maelstroms, as 
they whirl in the innumerable myriads of living cells which 
constitute each tree, we should be stunned as with the roar 
of a great city." 

But we must not judge of future possibilities by present 
experiences. Dr. Lardner wrote a book to prove that it 
would be impossible to navigate the ocean by steam. The 
first steamer that crossed the Atlantic carried that book 
with it, and gave a practical demonstration of its error. 
" Now we see through a glass darkly." The discoveries 
and analogies of science are merely types, symbols and 
prophecies to intimate the fullness of the coming life, when 
" we shall see face to face and know even as we are known." 
What now seems but a dream will then prove a glorious 
reality. As an intimation of possibilities in this direction, 
we may speak of the progress that has been made in tele- 
graphy. At first it was deemed necessary to have two 
wires in order to complete the circuit. It was soon ascer- 
tained that the earth would do for one of the wires. Ex- 
periments are now being made which seem to show that 
the earth is a magnet and will answer for both the wires. 
It has been discovered that several messages can be sent 
over the same wire at the same time. In addition to this, 
by means of an instrument called the Telephone, music 
can be transmitted from one office to another. The Boston 
Traveller calls attention to some experiments that have 
been made with sounds, and it reads almost like a tran- 
script from the "Arabian Mghts." It says : 

" The readers of the Traveller have often been made 
acquainted with the wonderful inventions of Professor Bell, 
by which musical and vocal sounds can be and have been 
sent over the electric wire, but few, if any, are aware of the 



[30] 

■wonderful results which are sure to follow these improve- 
ments in telegraphy. A few nights ago Professor Bell 
was in communication with a telegraphic operator in New 
York, and commenced experimenting with one of his in- 
ventions pertaining to the transmission of musical sounds. 
He made use of his phonetic organ and played the tune of 
'America,' and asked the operator in New York what he 
heard. 

"'I hear the tune of 'America'/ replied New York; 
' give us another.' 

"'What do you hear now?' 

"'I hear the tune of 'Auld Lang Syne', with the full 
chords distinctly,' replied New York. 

" Thus, the astounding discovery has heen made that a 
man can play upon musical instruments in New York, New 
Orleans or London, or Paris, and he heard distinctly in 
Boston ! If this can be done, why can not distinguished 
performers execute the most artistic and beautiful music in 
Paris, and an audience assemble in Musical Hall, Boston, 
to listen ! 

"Professor Bell's other improvement, namely, the trans- 
mission of the human voice, has become so perfected that 
persons have conversed over one thousand miles of wire 
with perfect ease, although as yet the vocal sounds are not 
loud enough to be heard by more than two persons. But 
if the human voice can be sent over the wire, and so dis- 
tinctly that when two or three known parties are telegraph- 
ing the voices of each can be recognized, we must soon 
have distinguished men delivering their speeches in Wash- 
ington, New York, or London, and audiences assembled in. 
Music or Faneuil Hall to listen." 

And, as if this were not enough, another new and won- 
derful discovery, in connection with the telegraph, is re- 
ported from Paris, and is nothing less than sending por- 
traits over the wire. We are assured that the portrait of 
a Lyons official was sent from Paris and was recognized at 
once; and in return, the Lyons police telegraphed to Paris 
the portrait of a run-away clerk, who was recognized 



[31] 

thereby as he alighted in Paris from the Lyons train, and 
arrested. Now, if these things are true, what are we com- 
ing to ? We need, it may be, only a slight modification 
in our present organs and senses to enable us to communi- 
cate with the inhabitants of other planets and stars, if any 
of these are populated with intelligence. "Why might not 
Yenus, Mars and Earth communicate with each other 
through the agency of light, ether, gravity or sound, as 
well as Paris, London, New York and Peoria, by electricity ? 
Perhaps no Morse will come to teach us how; but the 
spectroscope has already told us the elemental composition 
of distant stars. But however this may be, the Angel of 
the Resurrection will touch the body with power and endow 
it with faculties of which these intimated discoveries may 
be but faint adumbrations. In the spiritual body the organ 
of sight may become both microscopic and telescopic; the 
ear may become so gifted as to catch the harmonies of the 
universe now unheard; the voice may have the range of 
many octaves, and be not single merely, but a full orches- 
tron; at any rate, all the senses will be raised in power and 
in glory; for Paul writes that the body "is sown in dis- 
honor; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness; it is 
raised in power." The ethereal body will be so recon- 
structed and enlarged with powerful and numerous chan- 
nels for communication and information as will adapt it to 
its new relations, and prove a suitable companion to the 
ennobled soul in the full possession of life, — life, eternal 
life. 

The credit of originality is due neither to science nor 
literature as relates to the immortality of words. We find 
the clearest statement of this truth in the Bible, and we 
close this section with the insertion of a few passages. 
" But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall 
speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judg- 
ment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by 
thy words thou shalt be condemned." — Math. 12:36, 37. 
"For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; 
neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore, whatso- 



[32] 

ever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the 
light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets 
shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops." — Luke 12 :2, 3. 
" For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which 
hath wings shall tell the matter."— Eccl. 10 :20. 

VIII.— LIGHT. 

The luminous substance called light rushes through 
space with a measurable speed. Some bodies shine with 
original, and others with reflected light. It is estimated 
that it takes four thousand years for a ray of light to come 
to us from any star of the twelfth magnitude; hence, if a 
beam of light has reached any such star from this earth, 
its moment of arrival there is four thousand years subse- 
quent to its departure here. 

Let us combine with this fact the remarkable property 
which light as a picture-taking artist possesses. A single 
ray condenses within its narrow limits a view of surround- 
ing objects. Innumerable burning strands from as' many 
objects blend and converge in the eye upon the optic nerve; 
and a single ray imparts the complete view to the mind 
which each separate ray had brought. We look upon a 
landscape. Here we have a picture of houses, hills, val- 
leys, river, lake, clouds, birds, trees, countless leaves, in- 
numerable blades of grass, — a totality past enumeration, 
so far as details are concerned; and yet all these finally 
ride safely and accurately in the bosom of a single beam of 
light. It is easy to understand, then, that the single ray of 
light, as it darts forth from the earth at any moment, car- 
ries within its minute compass a picture of every thing 
visible upon half of the globe at the instant it flashes away. 
A beam of light, in its successive and continuous depart- 
ures from the moment of the creation of man to the pres- 
ent instant, carries in minute photograph the complete 
story of human history in all its various mutations — the 
temptation, the fall, the flood, the overthrow of Pharaoh, 
the destruction of Jerusalem, the fall of the Soman Em- 
pire, the rise and fall of kingdoms and dynasties. And 



[33] 

the same is true of every star, sun, planet and satellite in 
the universe. Light is an artist that takes and keeps 
within its luminous folds a picture of every thing that is 
done any where and every where in the universe. We 
only need certain modifications of the mind and the organ 
of vision, such as increased power of sight, attention, and 
the ability of transportation to any point in space, in order 
to examine the pictures of a certain epoch; that is to say, to 
view the picture of a star with its history of four thousand 
years ago, or to fly onward in space and overtake the first 
glimmer of light that ever left the star in order to retrace 
it, we should be enabled to contemplate its complete his- 
tory. With such liberty we might seek any point in a con- 
tinuous beam and observe any desired event, just as now 
we turn the pages of a history backward and forward 
to examine at pleasure and more in detail the events and 
circumstances connected with any given period. If we 
could fly to that point in space where any avant courrier of 
light from some world has just now for the first time pene- 
trated, and follow it back to the world from whence it 
issued in continuous course, we should have imparted to us 
a full and accurate history of things done and seen upon 
that planet from its first appearance down to the present 
moment. • 

If a star or planet should be destroyed, its history 
would still survive; for this has gone out on the wings of 
light every-whither throughout the creation, carrying in 
pocket photograph the enduring record of its deeds. If a 
star is so remote that it requires a million of years for a 
ray of light to come to us from it, it would take a million 
of years before we could learn of its destruction. Now, if 
the freedom of the universe were granted us, such as angels 
seem to enjoy — as we may infer from the statement of 
Daniel, who says that while he was engaged in prayer 
the angel Gabriel, " being caused to fly swiftly," came from 
heaven and stood by him before he had finished his prayer, 
— and we could transport ourselves with the speed of 
thought — think yourself there and you are there, — then 
5 



[34] 

we should be able to follow these rays, or take such posi- 
tion that they would reach us to tell the story of their 
stars and be translated into enduring thought. A ray of 
light, when it strikes the eye, is extinguished, and the in- 
formation it bears is imparted to the mind. By the law of 
passive memory, it may be that every ray of light as it 
flies to the mind, like bees to a hive, is storing it with 
histories of the universe, that shall be read in the quick- 
ened life and with the increased powers of the world to 
come. If, then, the universe should ultimately go out in 
darkness — burn itself out — and be changed into the un- 
seen, it is not possible that any fact in its past history can 
thus be destroyed. By the law of equivalency, every fact 
a ray of light carries before the light goes out will be im- 
parted to some mind, and its impressions perpetuated upon 
the indestructible tablets of memory. And should a sin- 
gle ray penetrate regions of space so remote and so ob- 
scure that no mind, human or angelic, should observe it, 
that luminous beam brightly twinkles upon the divine 
every-where-present and all-seeing mind of Jehovah, and 
from His knowledge not the simplest fact or event will 
ever vanish. Light thus, like a celestial Ithuriel, is photo- 
graphing every deed and publishing it in the grand uni- 
versity press to all the universe for its intelligent creatures 
to read and study. When Cain raised his hands to smite 
his brother, the celestial telegraph caught the picture and 
sent the bulletin into all space and to all eternity to publish 
the brutal deed. " There is a God in heaven that revealeth 
secrets;" "who will render to every man according to his 
deeds;" "for God shall bring every work into judgment, 
whether it be good or whether it be evil." 

An unknown writer, in pursuing reflections like these, 
shows us how the divine omniscience, with reference to past 
events, may be apprehended by a finite mind; and the per- 
ception is almost startling and overwhelming. "If we 
imagine the Deity as a man with human powers, but in a 
far superior degree, it will be easy for us to attribute to 
Him the faculty and power of really overlooking and dis- 



[35] 

cerning, even in the most minute particulars, every thing 
which may be sensibly and actually overlooked and seen 
from a real point of observation. 

" Thus, if we wish to comprehend how any past earthly 
deed or occurrence, even after thousands of years, is as dis- 
tinctly and immediately in God's presence as if it were 
actually taking place before His eyes, it is sufficient for our 
purpose to imagine Him present at a certain point, at 
which the light and reflection of the circumstance is just 
arriving. 

" Supposing that this result is established; Omniscience, 
with respect to the past, becomes identical and one and the 
same thing with actual Omnipresence with regard to space. 
For, if we imagine the eye of God present at every point 
of space, the whole course of the history of the world ap- 
pears to Him immediately and at once. 

" That which occurred on earth eight minutes before is 
glancing brightly and evidently in His sight in the sun. 
Upon the star of the twelfth magnitude, occurrences which 
have passed away for four thousand years are seen by Him; 
and in the intermediate points of space are the pictures of 
the events which have happened in every moment since. 

" Thus we have here the extension of Time, which cor- 
responds with that of Space, brought so near to our sensi- 
ble perception, that time and space can not be considered 
as at all different from one another. For those things 
which are consecutive one to the other in point of time lie 
next one to another in, space. The effect does not follow 
from the cause, but it exists visibly in space near it; and 
a picture has spread itself out before us, embracing space 
and time together, and representing both so entirely and 
at once, that we are no longer able to separate or distin- 
guish the extension of space from that of time. 

" The omniscience of God, with regard to the past, is be- 
come intelligible and easy to us, as a sensible and material 
all-surveying view. Before His eyes, endued with immeas- 
urable powers of sight, the picture of past thousands of 



[36] 

years is, at the present moment, actually extended in 
space. 

" Hence, when we imagine the purely human sense of 
sight rendered more extended and acute, we are able 
actually to comprehend one of the attributes of Deity. 

"But, according to the reverse, the excellence of this 
human sense becomes clear to us, if we have by this time 
understood that it only requires an increased optical and 
mechanical intensity of it to communicate, at least by ap- 
proximation, a divine power, viz., omniscience with regard 
to the past, to beings endowed with such exalted powers 
of vision." 

And in the line of these reflections, the reading of the 
139th Psalm will furnish additional topics. "Whither 
shall I go from thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy 
presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there : if 
I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take 
the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts 
of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy 
right hand shall hold me." 

IX.— OTHER AGENTS. 

There is generally a picture on the first page of the 
almanac of a man with lines drawn from different parts 
of his body to the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. 
This is a doctrine of the old astrology to teach the influence 
which stars and planets were believed to have upon the 
body and temperament of those born under their ascend- 
ency. This figment is still preserved in such words as 
jovial, mercurial, and saturnine. While all this, to the 
extent contemplated by the astrologers, is fanciful, yet it 
reflects a truth. Light, heat and electricity, and ethereal 
essences like them, when brought in contact with the 
mind, produce currents of influence that are equal to their 
action; for action and reaction are always equal. For in- 
stance, if the light of the moon enters a chamber and falls 
upon the head of a sleeper, its effect is most likely to man- 



[37] 

ifest itself in the restlessness of the sleeper. The Latins 
expressed this influence by the word lunacy, or moon- 
struck, thus making the moon directly responsible for all 
such aberrations of mind. And even as influences may 
originate in the stars to affect us, so our influence in the 
construction of society — "for no man liveth to himself, 
and no man dieth to himself" — may and must go out to 
every member in it, and by means of those subtile and in- 
visible agents by which we are surrounded, whether visible 
or invisible, the effect may be carried to the distant stars. 
" The influence," says a writer, " which a man exerts does 
not cease with the effect that he has upon his most intimate 
friends; nor does it flow from the power of his word alone, 
nor from the mere force of his example. Whatever a man 
does, or thinks, or feels, even in solitude, has an effect upon 
the world. For, in the first place, it affects himself and his 
own character; and that character must influence, in some 
manner, those with whom he comes in contact; influence 
them in proportion to the strength of his power to affect 
them, and to the weakness of their power to resist him. 
A cheerful countenance carries a gleam of sunshine into 
the darkest alley; a sad face throws a shadow over the 
hearts of those who pass it, even on a crowded thorough- 
fare; thus, every shade of thought and feeling, expressed 
in the countenance, or in word, or gesture, or action, pro- 
duces some corresponding change, slight though it may be, 
in all souls that recognize, however dimly, the expression. 
And this change transfers itself, in varying proportions, 
to ever-widening circles. Thus the spirit and tone of the 
age is the sum of the individual thoughts, and thus also 
the individual character of each man is to some extent the 
product of all the preceding ages of the race." The phi- 
losophy of the last age is the common sense of to-day. 
We may not be conscious of our influence, but it goes on 
just the same. John outran Peter to the tomb of the 
Savior; but Peter was the first to enter; "then went in the 
other disciples also." At a time between the resurrection 
and ascension, when the disciples were without definite 



[38] 

plans and at a loss what to do, Peter said, " I go a fishing." 
And the disciples answered, "¥e also go with thee." 

A chemist can discover whether poisons have been taken 
into the stomach by the analysis of its contents. It only 
requires a keener sense and greater skill to tell what a per- 
son has eaten by the analysis of his breath. Some foods 
proclaim their presence, such as garlic, more strongly than 
others. A man who uses tobacco or strong drinks can 
not disguise it, though he eat roast coffee or wafers : his 
breath tells the story. This is of importance only as show- 
ing that the elements have their indestructible individual 
characteristics; and when we read in the Bible of three 
great books which shall be finally produced — the "Book 
of Remembrance," the " Book of Life," and the " Book of 
Judgment," — we may more readily believe this, as we see 
how the records of every thing connected with ourselves 
and the past ages are being indelibly worked into the very 
constitution of the universe. " Behold," said Joshua to the 
people, "this stone shall be a witness unto us." Habakkuk 
said to the Chaldeans, on account of their iniquity, " For 
the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out of the 
timber shall answer." And when the Pharisees sought to 
rebuke Jesus, He answered : " If these should hold their 
peace, the stones would immediately cry out." Orators 
often, by a figure of rhetoric in their impassioned appeals, 
call heaven and earth to witness. Such language is more 
than a solemn metaphor. It will prove strict reality; for < 
they do and will witness. 

But whilst it may be admitted that deeds done in the 
light are caught and pictured, it may be that those done in 
darkness will escape detection. Science gives little com- 
fort, however, to those who might thus think and prefer 
" darkness to light because their deeds were evil." Presi- 
dent Hitchcock quotes from a paper by Mr. Hunt " On the 
changes which Bodies are capable of undergoing in Dark- 
ness," some experiments, which go far " to prove the exist- 
ence, among bodies, of a power analagous to, if not identi- 
cal with, that which accompanies light, and is the basis of 



[39] 

the photographic process. Some philosophers do not re- 
gard them as identical. But this is of little consequence 
in my present argument. For all agree that there is a 
power in nature capable of impressing the outlines of some 
objects upon others in total darkness." 

" In respect to such cases, there are one or two facts 
deserving of special notice. And, first, we must not infer, 
because man has yet been able to bring out to human view 
but a few examples of this sort, that they are, therefore, 
few in nature. Eather should the discovery of a few lead to 
the conclusion that nature may be full of them, and that a 
more delicate and refined chemistry may yet disclose them. 
For the few known cases give us a glimpse of a recondite 
law of nature, which most likely pervades creation. Some 
regard these dark rays as neither light nor heat, nor chem- 
ical rays, but a new element; but whatever its nature, no 
reason can be given why it should operate only in a few 
cases, and those of artificial preparation. More probably, 
through this influence, all bodies brought into contact, or 
proximity, impress their images upon one another; and the 
time may come when, touched by a more subtile chemis- 
try than man now wields, these images shall take a place 
among obvious and permanent things in the universe, to 
the honor and glory of some, but to the amazement and 
everlasting contempt of more." Truly did Hamlet say, 
" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than 
are dreamed of in our philosophy." 

"Of more I say; for wickedness has oftener sought the 
concealment of darkness than modest virtue. The foulest 
enormities of human conduct have always striven to cover 
themselves with the shroud of night. The thief, the coun- 
terfeiter, the assassin, the robber, the murderer, and the 
seducer, feel comparatively safe in the midnight darkness, 
because no human eye can scrutinize their actions. But 
what if it should turn out that sable night, to speak para- 
doxically, is an unerring photographist ! What if wicked 
men, as they open their eyes from the sleep of death, in 
another world, should find the universe hung round with 



[40] 

faithful pictures of their earthly enormities, which they 
had supposed for ever lost in the oblivion of night ! What 
scenes for them to gaze at for ever ! They may now, indeed, 
smile increduously at such a suggestion; but the disclosures 
of chemistry may well make them tremble. Analogy does 
make it a scientific probability that every action of man, 
however deep the darkness in which it was performed, has 
imprinted its image upon nature, and that there may be 
tests which shall draw it into daylight, and make it per- 
manent so long as materialism endures." 

But however that may be, the words of Holy Writ are 
true, and though deniable by a doubter, yet there is nothing 
that escapes the omniscient eye and mind of God. " If I 
say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night 
shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not 
from thee; but the night shineth as the day : the darkness 
and the light are both alike to thee."— Ps. 119 : 11, 12. 

X.— GRAVITATION. 

But we proceed even a step beyond this to show that 
deeds, whether done in the light or darkness, are carefully 
noted, and no slightest action ever escapes its scrutiny and 
record. More truly than we imagine " there 's a chiel in 
amang us takin' notes." 

We may use for our illustration here the apple of New- 
ton. So simple a thing as the falling of an apple to the 
ground in his orchard awoke in his mind those reflections 
which led to the discovery and statement of the law of 
gravitation. Observing that all bodies, when unsupported, 
fall toward the centre of the earth, he inferred that this 
must be due to an attractive force exerted by the earth, 
and that it was doubtless the same force that kept the 
moon to the earth and the planets to the sun in their orbits 
around this central luminary. The calculations which he 
instituted led to this result, and established it as a law of 
nature. Its simplest statement is this : all bodies attract 
each other directly in proportion to their mass, and in- 
versely as the square of their distance apart. The uni- 



[41] 

verse is nothing but a self-adjusting pair of scales, where 
every movement, however slight or immense, must be felt 
and noted. I can not raise my arm, but the stars in their 
circling dance nod to it, and record the motion. The 
effect, it is admitted, is infinitessimal, but that does not 
show it to have been no effect; it is slight, to be sure, but 
that does not prove it to have been nothing. 

Astronomers, following the tracings of this law, are able 
to predict eclipses and designate the hour long before the 
event. Tracing this law backward, they are able to declare 
the conjunction of bodies at particular eras in the past. 
Now it only needs that we should acquire this astronomi- 
cal ability and have enlarged powers of mind to be enabled 
to read and trace in the movements of the heavenly bodies 
the forces and actions which have influenced them in order 
to bring them into their present posture. Dr. Hill, in a 
"Fragmentary Supplement" to the "Ninth Bridgewater 
Treatise," speaks of this with an eloquence that is rare. 
" Every moving thing on the earth, from the least unto the 
greatest, is accompanied in motion by all the heavenly 
spheres. The rolling planets influence each other on their 
path, and each is influenced by the changes on its surface. 
The starry systems, wheeling round their unknown centre, 
move in harmony with each other, and bend each other's 
courses, and each is moved by the planets which accom- 
pany it in its mighty dance. Thus does this law of gravi- 
tation bind all material bodies in one well-balanced system, 
wherein not one particle can move but all the uncounted 
series of worlds and suns must simultaneously move with it. 

" Thus may every deed on earth be instantly known in 
the farthest star, whose light, traveling with almost un- 
bounded speed since creation's dawn, has not yet reached 
our eyes. It only needs in that star a sense quick enough 
to perceive the motion, infinitely too small for human 
sense, and an analysis far-reaching enough to trace that 
motion to its cause. The cloud of witnesses that ever en- 
compass this arena of our mortal life may need no near 
approach to earthly scenes, that they may scan our con- 
6 



[42] 

duct. As they journey from star to star, and roam through 
the unlimited glories of creation, they may read, in the mo- 
tions of the heavens about them, the ever-faithful report of 
the deeds of men. 

" Thus considered, how strange a record does the star- 
gemmed vesture of the night present ! There, in the seem- 
ingly fixed order of those blazing sapphires, is a living 
dance, in whose mazy track is written the record of all the 
motions that ever men or nature made. Had we the skill 
to read it, we should there find written every deed of kind- 
ness, every deed of guilt, together with the fall of the 
landslide, the play of the fountain, the sporting of the 
lamb, and the waving of the grass. Nay, when we behold 
the superhuman powers of calculation exhibited some 
times by sickly children, long before they reach man's age, 
may we hot believe that men, when hereafter freed from 
the load of this mortal clay, may be able in the movement 
of the planets or the sun to read the records of their own 
past life ? 

" Thou, who hast raised thy hand to do a deed of wick- 
edness, stay thine arm ! The universe will be witness of 
thine act and bear an everlasting testimony against thee; 
for every star in the remotest heavens will move when thy 
hand moves, and all the tearful prayers thy soul can utter 
will never restore those moving orbs to the path from 
which thy deed has drawn them." 

XI.— EQUIVALENCE. 

The conservation of energy and the correlation of force 
are among the most interesting discoveries of science. It 
is impossible for man, with all the appliances of power at 
his command, to annihilate a single atom. Compound 
forms of matter may be changed, but the elements them- 
selves can not be destroyed. Man may well feel his insig- 
nificance in the presence of the tiniest mote that floats in 
the air. It has a subsistence he can not annihilate, nor can 
he call into existence one that shall float beside it. Here 
his alchemy and chemistry fail him. When a change takes 



[43] 

place in the structure of a body, the equation is so read- 
justed that nothing has been lost. If we burn a stick of 
wood, in the second member its exact equivalent is found 
in ashes, heat, gas, vapor, and smoke. It has now been 
resolved into the original elements, or into other forms of 
matter. He who created the universe is alone competent 
to annihilate it; man can do neither the one nor the other. 
In the Word of God we are informed that He does not de- 
sign to annihilate the worlds He has created; — that, per- 
haps, would be too great a waste of substances — but, so 
far as our earth and its immediate heavens are concerned, 
He has determined that the heavens, being on iire, shall 
melt with fervent heat, and the earth shall be renewed, and 
out of this palingenesis shall come the " new heavens and 
the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 

Personality is distinct from matter, and must prove just 
as indestructible in its subsistence. The identity of the 
soul, its individuality and personality, can not, without 
annihilation, be changed or mixed up with other personali- 
ties. Unless God annihilates each soul, it must continue to 
exist in the possession of the attributes which constitute its 
personality. The Cartesian formula may be applied to the 
eternity of man. "I think, feel, and put forth will-power; 
therefore this self, that thinks, feels and acts, must exist. 
I exist; therefore I am immortal." The reunion of the 
body to the soul, which death has separated, maybe neces- 
sary in order to complete the selfhood of man. He has 
had various senses and organs with important functions to 
connect him with the material universe; and if, in the life 
to come, the physical universe is to be conserved, then he 
needs some sort of body and organs to connect him with 
it. In our present life, we are so much under the domi- 
nance of the physical that, in common speech, we say, 
" You have a soul." In the future, the conditions may be 
reversed, and we shall live so much under the dominance 
of the spiritual, that it shall be common to say, " You have 
a body." It is curious that so many should now be more 
certain that they exist as bodies — for so the speech, "You 



[44] 

have an immortal soul," confesses — than that they exist as 
personalities, or that the "I" is the soul. The soul of man 
has a distinct selfhood as truly as the body. 

The idea of the soul coming back from the spiritual 
world to remhabit its former body is one with which liter- 
ature is quite familiar. Not only were Enoch and Elijah 
translated with their two-fold parts of body and soul; but 
even Moses, whose body for a while rested in the grave, 
came back in that body glorified with Elijah to the Mount 
of Transfiguration. At the crucifixion of Christ, many 
graves were opened, and the souls of departed saints were 
brought back to this life. Lazarus, after a four days' sleep 
in death, was restored to his body. In the Gospels we have 
an account of the Savior dwelling with His disciples dur- 
ing forty days in a body that had been revived after death 
and burial, and then ascending to heaven with it in their 
plain sight, to teach the reality of the spiritual heaven, 
and what shall happen to our bodies on the glorious resur- 
rection morning of our earth. The medical profession 
professes at times to witness illustrations of this same 
nature. Dr. Frye, a physician who has had a long and 
extensive practice in Peoria, relates a circumstance that, 
to his mind, was conclusive proof of the soul's eternity. 
Some years ago, he was called in to see a man dying with 
consumption. The patient's regular physician was not 
present. When the doctor entered the room, he saw that 
bodily life was extinct. To more fully confirm himself, 
he felt of the pulse, and found it still; he put his head to 
the heart, and lo, it had ceased to beat. " Madam," said 
he, turning to the wife, "your husband is dead;" and to 
console her, he added, " but you are prepared for this, hav- 
ing looked forward to it for some time." This conversa- 
tion was kept up for several minutes, when suddenly they 
were startled by hearing the dead man ask, "Am I in this 
world, or in the next ?" He then breathed several times 
and again passed away. To the reality of this event the 
doctor stated that there were several witnesses. 

An occurrence like this will puzzle a materialistic phi- 



[45] 

losopher. He will probably deny its possibility; for, when 
the body is once dead, in his belief, its life is for ever 
extinguished and can never reanimate a dead body. As 
evidence of Bible truth, it is presumptive, and with the 
principle of equivalence in view, it is accumulative. If the 
soul can exist for one moment apart from the body — the 
latter being dead, — its subsistence must be distinct and 
eternal, and proves that it is the soul that gives life to the 
body, and not the reverse, that the body gives life to the 
soul. " The soul of man," it has been well said, " is not a 
thing to be dissolved, or melted, or frozen, or pulverized. 
No axe can ever behead her, no polished blade can ever 
pierce her." The spirit, being thus invulnerable, can not, 
but by being annihilated, die. 

" Can it be so? 
Matter immortal, and shall spirit die? 
Above the nobler shall the less noble rise? 
Shall man alone, for whom all else survives, 
No resurrection know? Shall man alone, 
Imperial man, be sown in barren ground, 
Less privileged than the grain on which he feeds?" 

XII.— THE ETERNITY OF MEMORY. 

An important disclosure of mental science is the fact 
that memory is a two-fold faculty of conservation and 
recollection. Reminiscence falls far below the capacity of 
retention. The power of recollection is stronger in some 
than in others. The first point to be established is this : 
that conservation treasures every thing that enters con- 
sciousness in any shape. The experience of every one fur- 
nishes points of illustration. There are times when we 
can not recall things; and other times when these things 
all come back without any effort on our part. This shows 
that an event may be lost to reminiscence but not to reten- 
tion. In some the faculty of recollection is cultivated or 
manifested to a remarkable degree; and it is probable, be- 
fore the days of printing, that this energy of memory was 
much stronger than now, because more reliance was placed 
upon it. It was more common at that time to repeat an 



[46] 

oration or a poem after having heard it once, than now, 
when such necessity is removed by the printer's or the 
stenographer's art. The lore of secret societies is pre- 
served entirely by tradition, 'and if this, as in the case of 
masonry, is idem semper, ubique et ab omnibus, it shows that 
memory is exceedingly retentive and reproductive. Per- 
sons rescued from drowning are surprised by the recollec- 
tion of events which up to that moment were entirely for- 
gotten. Admiral Beaufort states that during the moments 
of submergence every incident of his life seemed to glance 
across his recollection, not in mere outline, but the whole 
picture filled up with every minute and collateral feature. 
We have it on the reliable authority of Coleridge that a 
young German maid, during a nervous fever, was heard to 
recite correctly passages of Greek, Latin and Hebrew, and 
this, as it appeared, from simply having heard her master, 
a clergyman, repeat them as she went about her household 
duties. 

Facts like these establish the proposition that memory, 
in its passive form, is a storehouse to gather and keep every 
thing that in any way comes in contact with self-conscious- 
ness. The active power to recall may vary, but if the pic- 
ture of an entire life, as in the case of Admiral Beaufort, 
may be produced when near to death, it is certain none of 
life's incidents have at any time been destroyed. They have 
simply slumbered in the chambers of passive memory, 
awaiting the action of certain principles before awakening. 
It follows, therefore, inasmuch as the mind is a primary 
and indestructible substance, which the change or even 
annihilation of matter can not affect, that memory, with 
all its hidden treasures, is as deathless as the soul itself. 

"But she shall flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amid the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." 

Facts and arguments might be multiplied to enforce 
Lord Bacon's remark that no thoughts are lost. They con- 
tinue virtually to exist, and the soul possesses within itself 
laws which, when fully brought into action, will be found 



[47] 

capable of producing the prompt and perfect restoration of 
the collected acts and feelings of its whole past existence. 
The inscriptions upon monumental stone or eulogistic 
brass may crumble into dust or melt with fervent heat, but 
each one of us carries within himself a tablet upon which 
memory is writing down an imperishable record. The 
history of the universe and of individual life thus finds 
its indestructible transcripts in matter and in mind, and 
the contents of these two volumes can in no wise contra- 
dict each other. 

XIIL— CHANCE. 

From a creation in time, the mind infers a creator from 
all eternity. The moment the universe was called into 
existence, it afforded an argument to intelligent beings for 
the eternity of God. In order to avoid and neutralize this 
just inference, the atheistic materialism of to-day is obliged 
to believe and teach the eternity of matter, and to rule out 
all traces of design, intelligence and personality. There is 
but one substance in the universe, and that substance is 
matter. Matter, they continue, is always attended by force, 
as a body by its shadow. Matter and force have existed 
from all eternity. Particles have been in motion from all 
eternity in the past, and will continue in motion through 
the eternity to come. Their coming together is cause, and 
the result is effect, and this law accounts for all that we 
see of reason, intelligence and design, for every thing that 
has taken place, or can take place. Outside of Nature, 
above or below, on the right hand or on the left, there is 
nothing. Nature is all, and in all. Now, this doctrine, or 
something like it, is advanced in the name of the science of 
the nineteenth century. The trinity of this new school is 
matter, force, and eternal motion. But is it new f There is 
scarcely a theory ever advanced that has been so riddled 
and torn to pieces by victorious argument as this old doc- 
trine of the atomic philosophers. Empedocles propounded 
it in Greece, 440 B.C.; Lucretius revived it among the 
Latins, 95 b. c, and expounded it in a poem of six books 
which bear the same relation to this doctrine that Milton's 



[48] 

Paradise does to the Bible. Their arguments read much 
like the special pleading of to-day, rather than of the long 
ago. But even the pagan Greeks pulled it all to pieces, 
showed its weakness, declared its absurdity, and yet, not- 
withstanding this, it is revamped in our day as sober science. 
Look at it just a moment. Is it not absurd on the very 
face of it that matter which is dead, force which is blind, 
motion which is impersonal, should be self-existent from 
eternity to eternity, and, by their accidental coming togeth- 
er in the perpetual motion of matter, should produce life; 
then, after an infinite lapse of time, intelligence, reason, or- 
der, beauty, harmony, contrivance, ideas of truth, right and 
justice; and again, those aspirations of the soul that cry 
aloud to the stars for immortality ? Believe it, who can ? 
Is it not senseless that what is essentially blind shall be the 
father of vision ? is it not absurd that what is devoid of all 
reason and intelligence shall give birth to reason and intel- 
ligence? is it not ridiculous that chance — blind, thought- 
less chance — shall be the ancestor of those infinite traces 
of design, skill and wisdom which have been scattered with 
a lavish hand through every nook, corner and crevice of 
the universe — aye, impressed upon the minutest atom that 
floats in a sunbeam ? Absurdity has gone as far as it can 
go, when it adopts this theory and teaches that Nature is 
the creator of the soul of man; that the universe, with its 
marvelous laws and exhibitions of endless harmony, reg- 
ularity and uniformity — more exact than any time-piece 
man has ever constructed — as shown in the varied move- 
ments of planet, sun, and star, has been born from blind im- 
personal chance ! How long would a man have to throw 
together the words in the English language before they 
would fall into the order, beauty, force and logic of Mil- 
ton, Shakespeare, and the sublime utterances of the Bible ? 
Could it be done in a day, or a millenium, or an eternity ? 
Removing the experiment back to times where no experi- 
ence can carry us does not help to explain it, but rather to 
increase the difficulty; for by this theory, the farther back 
we go, the less we find of reason, intelligence and design. 



[49] 

Most pertinently did Bishop Tillotson ask those men of 
the seventeenth century who pointed to chance for a solu- 
tion : " How often might a man, after he had jumbled a set 
of letters in a bag, fling them upon the ground before they 
would fall into an exact poem; yea, or so much as make a 
good discourse in prose ! And may not a little book be as 
easily made by chance as this great volume of the world ? 
How long might a man be in sprinkling colors upon a can- 
vas with a careless hand, before they could happen to 
make the exact picture of a man ! And is a man easier 
made by chance than this picture? How long might 
twenty thousand blind men, which should be sent out from 
the several remote parts of England, wander up and down 
before they would all meet upon Salisbury Plains and fall 
into rank and file in the exact order of an army ! And 
yet this is much more easy to be imagined than how innu- 
merable blind parts of matter should rendezvous them- 
selves into a world." 

The argument from design is one which can not be over- 
thrown. It is a G-ibralter that resists all waves of scepti- 
cism.* Denying that it amounts to any thing does not 
touch the argument, nor weaken it. The ostrich hides his 
head in the sand; but he has not rendered himself invisi- 
ble. We come to a pyramid in the desert. We can not 
tell who built it, or why it was built. But we are perfectly 
sure there was some thought back of sphinx and pyramid, 
or they would never have been built. We come to Baalbec, 
or Petra, or Persepolis, or basilisk, or mausoleum, or broken 
column of Parthenon; and we unerringly say there was 
thought back of all these — thought to originate, thought 
to plan, and thought to work into stone and temple and 
city these poems of a past beauty and faded grandeur. 
No one stumbles here. We come to a magnificent bridge 
spanning some wide and rapid stream; we come to a tun- 
nel cut under river or lake, or through mountain; we come 
to the cross-ties and the equation of iron; we come to en- 
gines of strength for ship and railway; we come to a 
church, a synagogue, and a cathedral; we come to capitol, 
7 



[50] 

and obelisk, and arch; we come to statues of iron, brass 
and marble; we come to a crystal palace, a Sydenham, or 
a Centennial; and we as confidently confess our creed — 
back of all these was mind; back of all these was archi- 
tect, artist, sculptor, engineer; back of all these the genius 
of thought; back of all these the immortal soul working 
through the hand of the artisan, mechanic and inventive 
skill. , Here there is no trouble about the insertion of an 
iota and the addition of ajiUoque. Thought, thought, every 
where, and back of all these godlike thought. 

But the moment we come to the little poem that has 
been expanded into a flower, color, symmetry, perfume, 
medicinal property, and other virtues, we say, well, this 
is another thing entirely — here we see the result of mat- 
ter, force and motion — a blind chance aided by natural 
selection and the survival of the fittest. We come to the 
earth, and now geologist, and botanist, and chemist, and 
zoologist and scientist gives us volume after volume of 
wonderful contrivances and adaptations; we come to the 
heavens, and the astronomer delights to trace their laws of 
beauty, and harmony, and correlations; we come to the 
inorganic department of elements, and the philosopher 
traces its adaptation to support vegetable life, and vegeta- 
ble life to sustain animal, and animal to produce thought, 
feeling and will; we come to relations of organs to wisest 
uses, of this to that, not in one, not in two, but in myriad 
functions and the happiest combinations without number; 
we come to all these, but now there is no longer any 
thought back of these : we find Epimetheus, but no Prome- 
theus; we find a pyramid, but it is on its apex; we find now 
most fortunately an eternal downpour of molecules, an 
endless motion among blind particles, the most happy com- 
bination of impersonal force. How lamentable such per- 
versity ! There is no use patting an argument on the back 
that denies you had father and mother. Does it not look 
as if the blindness were willful and the enmity determined, 
which in all human works acknowledges forethought, but 
denies it to the works of nature, and here finds evidences 



[51] 



only of afterthought? How much wiser to make the 
author of nature both Prometheus and Epimetheus ! At 
all events, one is not to be blamed if he is reminded by 
this hostility of the argument two nocturnal visitants held 
around a hen-roost. " Sam, is it wrong to steal ? " " Pete, 
that 's a great moral question which neither of us is quali- 
fied to discuss. Hand us down another pullet." 

Those who have read Boniface's French story of Picciola 
— and it is a prose poem on Natural Theology combined 
with that great impulse, love, which shifts so many of the 
scenes of this life, and such strange events as the mutations 
of time oft bring to men of fame and fortune — will per- 
ceive the drift of the following fragment. The study of 
nature ought to lead every intelligent mind to discern the 
thought back of nature by which even so small a thing as 
a flower has been fashioned, and from that thought it 
should turn as by instinct to the Great Thinker; for thought 
can proceed only from a thinker, and a thinker is a person. 
Thought in civilization requires a personal thinker; 
thought in the universe also requires a Personal Thinker. 



In a fortress 

Sentenced lay 
His opponent 

Count Charney. 
Bonaparte 

Spared his life ; 
Times were warlike, 

Full of strife. 

In a crevice, 

On the floor 
Of the pavement 

Out of door 
Where the sceptic 

Daily strolled, 
Fell a seed-lobe ; 

0, how bold! 

But it died not, 
There it grew ; 



Day gave sunshine, 

Night brought dew. 
How he watched it 

Day by day; 
What to name it 

None could say. 
"Gilliflower," 

It might be; 
"Picciola," 

'T is to me. 
He had written, 

In his cell, 
With a bold hand, 

That should tell 
How dark his creed: — 

" Chance is blind, 
Sole creator, 

Matter, mind." 
Now he added: 

"This I doubt." 



[52] 



Without book, 
He must look: 
Every breath the flower took, 

Each new change, 

Gave a range 

To his thoughts so strange. 
" Picciola " taught him more 
Than the learned had before. 

Here he saw 

Trace of law 

Filling him with awe. 

Teacher True, 

Doctor too, 

You did charm his life anew. 

From your wealth 

You gave health, 

Stript of leaves by stealth. 
Creation vast in a plant 
Mirror finding — God doth grant. 

To the weak 

And the meek 

Deity will speak. 



Flower dear, 

How you hear! 

You do know when storms are near ; 

Closing so, 

When winds blow 

Over they will go. 
Compass and barometer — 
All to a philosopher. 

Time you tell 

Just as well — 

You he would not sell. 

Buds appear, 

Spring is here, 

Rainy tempests he doth fear. 

Lessons wise 

From the skies 

In this plant arise. 
What a world of thought and care 
Makes the tiny flower fair ! 

Thought precedes 

All our needs; 

This he now concedes. 



XIV.— CONCLUSION. 

But it may be asked, If passive memory retains every 
thing, how will it be possible for any to go from an imper- 
fect life, with its imperishable record, and derive any pleas- 
ure from its contemplation ? It will depend upon whether 
love for sin or love for holiness shall guide the laws of asso- 
ciation. If love for purity predominates, it will bring forth 
from the storehouse only such memories as are pure and 
holy. We shall not be helpless, and compelled to revel in 
the sty of Epicurus and the filth of sensualism. A flood 
of unholy memories shall not, at their pleasure, deluge the 
soul. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak- 
eth. We think and talk about things we love. There will 
be nothing to recall or suggest any unholy association. 
The record of an evil life will lie covered and hid in the 
chambers of passive memory, and no echo can come from 
it but such as shall show the greatness of our deliverance, 
and fill the heart with greater joy and sweeter melody. If 
any thing else can come, it will prove the momentary dis- 



[53] 

cord in music that makes the harmony more complete. 
Grace shall be written upon the entire scroll of a rescued 
and redeemed life, that, go where memory will among the 
hidden stores, they shall blaze and burn with everlasting 
glory. 

Thus all the memories of this life in the redeemed soul 
will magnify the riches of grace and redound to the glory 
of God. This was the song of the saved that burst upon 
the delighted ear of St. John when brought to the con- 
fines of heaven. A Savior's love will sweetly mingle with 
all the memories of earth. " How strange to think," said 
Dr. Guthrie in a moment of sickness, "that within twenty- 
four hours I may see my mother and my Savior ! " 

And beside all the pleasant recollections which we may 
now be laying up in heaven, in the continuance of the life 
to come we shall gather only golden memories. God alone 
is in the possession of all truth. We are, and ever shall 
be, seekers after truth. Even eternity can never disclose to 
a finite mind all the rich treasures of the Infinite God. 
Heights and depths unexplored will constantly arise. In 
this holy and happy pursuit, joys will grow and not dimin- 
ish; stores of knowledge will accumulate and never van- 
ish; discovery after discovery in grace, truth and divine 
revelations of mystery will burst upon the ravished soul, 
to enrich the past with hopeful and happy memories; and 
eternity will prove a continuous and ever-present delight. 
Every thought, aspiration and reminiscence shall make life 
more great and more grand. The everlasting kingdom of 
our God shall be full of love, joy, peace, praise, and glory. 

And, on the other hand, if the memory of an evil life 
be unrestrained by grace and holy love, its recollection 
will constitute a keen source of unhappiness. " Son, re- 
member ! " A wasted life, and its unholy deeds ! The 
wicked, by the laws of association, will recall his wicked- 
ness, his envy, his hate, his lust, his murderous thoughts, 
his betrayal of trust, of youth and innocence, his destruc- 
tion of good, his trampling upon holy opportunities, and 
this, all this — a deathless memory in a quickened con- 



[54] 

science — will gnaw like a worm that never dieth, and burn 
like a fire that is never quenched. "A rich landlord in 
England once performed," it is said, " an act of tyrannical 
injustice to a tenant who was a widow. The widow's son 
was a witness of it, and afterward becoming a painter, he 
transferred that scene to canvas. Years afterward the 
rich man saw it, and as he saw it, he turned pale and trem- 
bled. He wanted to purchase and destroy it, but the art- 
ist would not sell it." So, too, will the memory of an evil 
life in the future arise like an avenging artist to paint the 
disgraceful scenes of the past to our utter discomfiture. It 
will be no excuse for one to say, " I did not know that 
memory was so complete and deathless." The record goes 
on just the same. The boys that hired a carriage for a 
particular distance did not think, when they drove twice 
as far, that they should be detected. But every turn the 
wheels made the unseen clock attached to the axle was 
compelled to register, and when they returned and dis- 
puted with the owner about the distance and the price, he 
showed them the concealed clock and confounded them. 
The clock kept the record just as faithfully as if the boys 
had known all about it. Passive memory is a clock within, 
whose unseen register we do well to heed and not carry it 
to places where the testimony shall be all against us. We 
may and should so walk that its record shall eventually 
testify to a truthful and holy life. 

And in view of all this, how necessary to fill the present 
life and its passing moments With kind words, noble 
thoughts, holy desires, useful deeds and sunny memories, 
that we may lay up a storehouse of good things for our 
future delight. Even now how bright are the memories of 
youth and our early associations. Life never seemed so 
hopeful and beautiful as then when we first drank at the 
fountains of life and knowledge. The past had no remem- 
brance of evil. The earth never looked so green and fair 
as then. The stars never seemed to twinkle with such 
lustre and friendliness as then. Appetite never quite so 
keen and fresh ! No evil habit had then taken hold of us 
with a Sampson grasp. In the memory of those sunshiny 



[55] 

days, when our father guided us, our mother loved and 
cheered us, and a happy household surrounded us with 
their loving words, remembrance finds but little evil and 
no guile; but little sorrow and few disappointments. 
Since those golden hours, unkind words and unkinder 
thoughts, evil desires and injurious actions have arisen. 
And then, too, we can not help but think what we are and 
what we might have been ! Shall we then cry, " Days ot 
my youth, oh youth, come back ! " Ah ! it is all in vain. 
Let us rather turn to present opportunity. 

There was an artist once in sunny Italy 
Who made a vow, if ever he should see 
Life's counterparts in ugliness and grace, 
To paint the horrid wretch — the lovely face, 
And fix enduringly with matchless skill 
The two extremes in moral good and ill. 

In Florence dwelling, with a painter's aim, 
Much seeking what might gain a deathless fame, 
He found a child of beauty passing rare: 
It seemed not of the earth, but of the air. 
For fear such heavenly charms, except in dream, 
Would never more across his pathway gleam, 
He caught on canvas true, with shading fine 
And loving zeal, the form and look divine. 
That gentle countenance in gloomy hour 
His room adorning filled with cheerful power. 

Time flew ; its opposite he did not meet, 

Though sought among the vilest in the street; 

In vain he deemed his search for fit companion, — 

A face as near to hell as that to heaven. 

At length, in foreign lands sojourning long, 

He found a culprit base in prison strong: 

A fierce and haggard fiend, whose blood-shot eyes 

Were kindling with a fire that never dies; 

Whose scowling brow with passions wild grew dark; 

Whose bloated cheeks deforming lust did mark. 

The contrast could not be in aught more great; 

His vow was realized ; he had the mate 

To loveliness in ruined counterpart. 

How great the disappointment of his heart 

To learn that these two pictures, none the less, 

Were of the self-same soul true likenesses! 

This loathsome wreck had been that lovely boy 

Whose infant days had dawned in peace and joy. 

These portraits in a Tuscan gallery 

Hang side by side and prove reality. 



[56] 

Thus life is full of mystery and change — 

An April day is not more fitful, strange. 

The landscape in the morning may be fair, 

The earth serene amid the lucid air; 

A sudden storm sweeps o'er the charming scene, 

The sun in inky darkness sets at e'en. 

Thus impure paint the brightest tints doth taint, 

Of life's sad counterparts an image faint. 

The lad of brilliant parts and comely face 

In after years may mar this youthful grace, 

And show no signs of fairer prophecy, 

Its words defaced — all, all most ruthlessly. 

We hoped to see the boy live right along, 

In virtue growing stronger and more strong; 

Youth's beauty glow in manhood still more clear, 

The strength of manhood strengthening every year; 

The child become a youth in upright power, 

Old age of youth's good seed the crowning flower. 

But lust and vice, the easel taking, wrought 

The hateful features with the force of thought, 

Its wond'rous lines of beauty rubbing out; 

A transformation daily, till we doubt 

That this to that ere bore the slightest trace, 

That fiend from angel ever got his face. 

The foulest fiend was once an angel bright, 

Proud Satan, Lucifer, the child of light. 

There is no artist like the heart to make 

The fleshly garment from the spirit take 

Its form and shape. The pure soul will transform 

The poorest tabernacle — 'tis life's norm — 

And cause beyond the fuller's power to glow 

As on the Mount, and glisten like the snow. 

There is no artist so can beautify, 

And give to man a grace that shall not die, 

As noble deeds, fine thoughts and holy love, — 

These are the servants of the Heavenly Dove. 

The soul is artist, sculptor, architect, 

To fashion form — to mold, adorn, correct. 

And so upon our faces you may read 

What each through life has loved in thought and deed ; 

Such portraitures in character endure, 

And make our life or death complete, secure. 

. The past is youth and childhood of to-day ; 

To-day but broadens out to-morrow's way. 

To grow in good or ill is life's great law; 

This two-fold germ of youth fills life with awe. 

Each life in peace begins at mother's heart, — 

Oh, guard thy life from evil counterpart! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




